


A mirror framed in black wood

by Aranel125



Category: Cinderella Phenomenon (Visual Novel)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24537238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aranel125/pseuds/Aranel125
Summary: A take on how Fritz got cursed.
Kudos: 7





	A mirror framed in black wood

\- How on Earth could I give birth to such a son! – Sir Alcaster repeated for the tenth time already.  
The royal advisor looked at his ally in illegal activities with a light semblance of compassion.  
He had already given up the attempts to calm him. The head knight of the Order of Caldira was in the mood unofficially known at the court as “don’t approach or he’ll eat you whole”. At the moment, the knight was pacing the room in heavy footsteps, and the advisor, being a clever man – more precisely, a clever witch, - stepped aside providently.  
\- Enough playing a martyr, - Alcaster growled, when his companion raised his eyes to the skies. – That was your stupid idea.  
Honestly speaking, it was true.  
\- I saw a practice of your knights today, - Sir Mythros mentioned slightly earlier. – Your son was splendid.  
Alcaster swelled of pride. Himself, he considered Fritz Leverton a rug unworthy to be called man, but side people praising his son was in a way praising his heredity, and what comes to heredity, the young man had everything fine.  
\- Brave, prompt, talented, - the royal advisor continued. – Have not you thought of involving him in the case?  
Alcaster raised his head in surprise:  
\- In ours?  
\- Of course. You see yourself as a great future monarch. Why then you allow such a potential to be wasted?  
\- Too immature, - the knight muttered. – What’s the use of him in state-important affairs?  
But agreed to try after all.  
***  
Fritz, upon returning home, was quite a lot surprised to see the royal advisor as his father’s guest.  
\- Sir Mythros! What are you doing here so unexpectedly? Did some emergent business…  
\- Ah, not at all, Sir Fritzgerald, nothing urgent, - the latter squinted his eyes. – Sir Alcaster and me simply wanted a little talk. Sit down, keep us a company.  
Fritz sat by, hiding his anxiety. He never before was present at a conversation of the most important people – normally father was sending him away when accepting a visit.  
Sir Alcaster coughed:  
\- Where were we then?  
\- At the great Hildyr’s testaments, - Sir Mythros suggested helpfully.  
\- Great Hildyr? – Alcaster rose from under the table into an orator’s pose. – So, her testaments were the following. The State, that is me.  
\- You? – the advisor raised a brow ironically.  
\- Well, not meaning me, - the head knight of Caldira cast his eyes down for a moment, - but a true ruler, great and terrible in his ways! Fear, messieurs, motivates…  
When Sir Alcaster launched into his pet subject, nothing could turn him away from it. The lecture of high production rates in good old times and the ensuing beneficial influence of curses on the economics took a bit longer than he intended.  
Sir stopped only when he noticed Fritz yawning and Sir Mythros looking with interest at a picture on the wall.  
\- Any questions or objections? – the orator wondered in a business tone, sitting back to his place.  
Fritz shrugged his shoulders.  
\- I think we have a good king.  
\- Alas, I am afraid you are judging so because of lack of experience, - the royal advisor smiled. – Your father and I, on the contrary, have reached the conclusion that the country is in need of change.  
Fritz was surprised:  
\- But King Genaro is not old at all, full of strength and not going to die…  
\- We’ll help him, - Alcaster growled.  
Mythros dropped his face into hands.  
Fritz was looking at Alcaster, eyes widely open.  
\- Father, it is not a thing for joking.  
\- Joking? That’s no jokes. We are going to build a new world, just like that!  
\- Sir Alcaster, - the advisor, having gained control over himself, used the pause decisively, - I think you are exaggerating. It is not obligatory to kill the king or anyone else, I am completely against violence. A way to replace a ruler in a humane manner can be found…  
Fritz was looking from one to another with a gaze full of terror.  
\- Father… Sir… You truly want… to have the king down?  
Sir Mythros slowly raised a brow:  
\- Sir Fritzgerald, are you with us?  
The youth, pale, rose from his place.  
\- But it is madness! All of us have made the oath! It’s… we simply must not do so!  
\- Who must not? – Alcaster also rose from his chair, beet red. – Are you telling your father what to do? Too young for this kind of talk!  
\- Father, but the king is a good person! And he has a wife and children… What will become of them if he will be put down?  
\- Like I had no other concerns than worrying about Genaro’s pups! – the head knight smashed his fist against the table.  
At the mention of “Genaro’s pups” the eyes of the royal advisor gleamed with cold steel, but he did not say anything.  
Fritz also was silent, fists clenched, his face almost the colour of his hair. He was shaking.  
\- I… regardless, I am not participating in this, - he finally forced out in a hushed voice. – Father, please, come to your senses.  
Alcaster was breathing heavily.  
\- Away.. out of sight! What kind of a son are you to me?  
The youth threw a feverish wild glance around the room, as if expecting support from the walls, then rushed away.  
***  
Alcaster just would not calm down.  
\- The support in old age… all my hopes gone! How on Earth could I give birth to a son like that!  
The royal advisor kept wisely silent.  
Alcaster had enough.  
\- If you are so smart – take care so I had until tomorrow a helper not inferior in any way to this… this one! Don’t give a damn where will you get him – I need a moral compensation! My own flesh and blood… shame! The potential is being wasted, they say! Let both of you go to hell!  
He made a pause to take a breath, and Mythros hurried to use the chance:  
\- Sir Alcaster, my friend…  
\- Go to hell with your friendship! Either you are providing a compensation – or it’s done with our alliance. And you can tell frogs in a swamp about the unjustly hurt witches.  
The advisor suppressed with an effort the desire to invent for his companion some interesting curse.  
For the sake of Her Majesty he should bear this.  
***  
The advisor was walking around the Leverton mansion in a nasty mood.  
Where, may one wonder, is he supposed to find a helper for Alcaster?  
Is one going to fall on him from a tree?  
He threw a pensive look around the old trees of the orchard.  
Looks like these Levertons even cannot tend their own garden. As if they have crawled yesterday out of a forest, honestly.  
And the apple never falls far…  
Speaking of apples. In the branches of the nearest apple tree he caught a glance of a blonde head.  
The twenty-year-old lad – or how old is he? – still spends his time climbing trees? He at this age was actively reading the great philosophers of the old days!  
But a minute later the advisor realized he was admiring the soundless agility with which Leverton Jr. was climbing from one branch to the other.  
If he was not to gather apples but to watch from some roof someone who should not know they are being watched …  
***  
Fritz did not come back home until it was completely dark.  
He was totally unable to see father after what happened.  
He refused to believe what they were saying.  
Did the ground shake under feet if father decided on… such a thing?  
Normally physical activities helped the youth to distract from heavy thoughts. Climbing those trees, not for any apples. And better, when no one was looking, was running without a goal or direction, delighting on a savage-tasting feeling of freedom.  
Today, it made things lighter again.  
Only when the war was over he came to the capital after his father. Fritz Aiden Leverton had grown up far away from here, in Blackwood, a province at the kingdom border. There were no noblemen in the neighborhood, and the boy always spoke easily with the vassals, enjoying the same kinds of common fun in the breaks between swordsmanship classes.  
At first, he was a bit afraid of the royal palace.  
Before he met her.  
According to books, Fritz used to imagine that a princess is a lot of lace, long eyelashes and a flock of maids watching no speck of dust would fall on her. Instead of this, he saw a strict girl who more often walked around the palace alone than with maids and always spoke only what she truly was thinking.  
And also – she felt bad. Even though she would earlier bite her tongue away than admit it out loud.  
Fritz once even got into a fight with another young nobleman who called her behind her back a “witch’s brat”.  
Yes, she was a daughter of a witch, and what does it mean? Why do they care?  
One does not choose their parents.  
She even knew nothing of the rule of Hildyr the Fearsome. She loved some very different Queen Hildyr, who each year prepared for her daughter a carefully chosen doll…  
She knew her mother at least. And Lady Berthalde Leverton died when her son was small yet…  
And the young man’s thoughts returned to his father.  
Could it be he really went mad?  
***  
The door of his room opened quietly.  
The royal advisor softly came in, closed the door behind him and casually sat down on a chair facing the youth, looking at him with a strange testing expression.  
Fritz could not help tensing up:  
\- What do you want?  
\- We need a private talk, - Sir Mythros’ lips stretched in a thin smile.  
\- I… have nothing to talk with you about, - Fritz attempted to hide an involuntary trembling in his voice. – I have already said: I am out.  
The advisor’s eyes narrowed to an impossible extent.  
\- Sir Fritzgerald, let me calm you down: no one will bother you with this question anymore. I assure you, you will forget the yesterday conflict like it never was there. Pick apples if you like, gather daisies, you can even make for yourself a flower crown.  
\- What is the matter then? – Fritz tried to control his madly beating heart.  
\- I have a present for you.  
With a surprise, Fritz accepted a small object out of the advisor’s hands.  
This thing was wrapped in a scarlet cloth with an uneven edge, as if torn from a clothes flap. Torn away, as if entangled in brambles… or maybe bitten off by an animal.  
The young man unfolded the rag slowly.  
It was a little mirror framed in black wood, exquisitely fashioned in a shape of intertwined branches. It seemed like your reflection was looking at you from the deep of forest.  
Sir Mythros’ cold hand touched his shoulder.  
Fritz flinched and suddenly realized he could not move.  
\- It is too late, - the advisor’s voice hissed to his ear.  
The candle light on the table went away.  
When did the deep night fall?  
A night like he had never seen before – soundless, deafening and disturbing the ear with its silence. No shapes of the room, not a gleam of starlight in the window – no, only a haze of indistinct shadows.  
Cold… Fear!  
Amber eyes in black branches.  
Iron grasp on his shoulder.  
Senses sharpened to the extent.  
Heart beating wildly, insanely.  
Fear, fear… pain! Why it hurts so much?  
A whisper to his ear:  
\- Night is time for silly children to sleep.  
Fear.  
Black branches before his eyes.  
\- You are already lost. You have left the path. You are in the forest, where there is no place for the shy and the weak.  
Pain.  
Blood trumpeting in his temples.  
There, in the shadow maze… is it simply his reflection’s eyes?  
The reflection’s eyes glow savagely.  
It grins.  
The mirror falls from his hands.  
Fear. Pain. Fear.  
\- You have slept in your den for too long. Your time has come. Awake, wolf.  
***  
His heart still was beating tensely.  
The young man opened his eyes, holding his breath.  
The common sounds of the night were slowly returning. His eyes were getting used to half-darkness.  
A cold hand was grasping his shoulder.  
The young man slipped away almost instinctively, rushed to the farther corner of the room and froze strained.  
The candle light flickered, illuminating a silhouette of a thin man clad in green.  
The youth swallowed, gradually remembering.  
The man in green was watching him tenaciously:  
\- Do you remember who am I?  
The youth nodded slowly. It was just the thing he knew well enough.  
\- You are Sir Mythros, the royal advisor and a rare viper.  
Sir Mythros either was not offended or did not show it.  
\- And you?  
The youth pressed his lips tight. Yes, he was Fritzgerald Aiden Leverton.  
And it was him, the carefree boy, who was blissfully enjoying the sun and was ready to hug every stranger.  
And that was only yesterday… Heavens, what an idiot he was.  
Sitting, mouth open, and trying to reason with two dangerous predators, speaking with them like they were sweet lambs.  
Including this very advisor…  
Wait.  
The young man folded his arms.  
\- May I wonder, what is this thing you have done to me?  
Sir Mythros’ eyes shone proudly.  
\- You should be grateful to me. I discovered you in a naïve boy. I awakened your audacity, your alertness, your cunningness. You are now a wolf in the night, knowing no fear. Tell, do not you like my gift?  
The youth licked his dry lips:  
\- What for?  
\- You know the reason. I need a useful servant.  
The youth snorted.  
\- You think I will go to you as a chain dog just like that?  
The royal advisor frowned:  
\- You will, you have no escape from me. This your trick won’t play once again. I think you understand that you are in my hands and unable to counter me. You are not a leader in this pack, neither you are going to be one ever. I am stronger and smarter than you.  
The yellow eyes met the pale brown ones. The youth blinked and moved his gaze away.  
\- Fine, - he muttered reluctantly. – I submit to you.  
The advisor nodded.  
\- I knew you are a clever boy. Come, we have enough time – Sir Fritzgerald will not wake anytime soon.  
\- What?  
\- Alas, it is out of my power to reforge your soul forever. I only separated you from the former sweet boy, who will wake up in mornings like nothing happened.  
The young man clenched his teeth. Why he cannot have not only freedom, but even his body will not be his own?  
\- It all depends on you. If you will deal with your opposite side – you will remain a wolf forever. If you lose to him – you will remain a pet poodle.  
The youth swallowed.  
\- I want a name.  
\- What, excuse me?  
\- I want a name, - he repeated louder. – If Sir Fritzgerald is the other one, I don’t want to be called the same.  
The royal advisor thought a bit.  
\- My queen was born in the north, - he finally said slowly. – On her native language, I name you Varg.  
\- Varg, - the young man repeated. The sound of that name reminded of a short growl. – I like it.  
The royal advisor smiled.  
\- Come on. Let us make a surprise for your father.  
Varg grinned contently.


End file.
